Review of "Deep Waters," a monstrously ridiculous erotic thriller starring Ben Affleck and Ana de Armas
"Vanished" by Smoker.
Vic (Ben Affleck) and Melinda (Ana de Armas) are an affluent married couple in deep marital crisis. Vic endlessly adores his wife and does everything he can to keep her happy, but he doesn't understand the main thing: their passion is irrevocably gone and no promise to return. Because of her natural temperament, Melinda begins to look for a sexual partner on the side - fortunately, there is a whole queue of those willing. However, none of the lovers do not stay in this world for long - someone very methodically gets rid of everyone who dared to touch Melinda. Apparently, spineless and apathetic at first glance, Vic leads a double life and hides a lot from his beloved wife.
It's hard to believe that the erotic thriller genre, which has been pretty dusty, once dominated the big screen, with Paul Verhoeven, Brian De Palma, David Cronenberg and, of course, Adrian Lyne as its main popularizers. At one time films like Fatal Attraction, Car Crash and Basic Instinct even achieved cult status, but inevitably fell into oblivion, becoming hostages to their own era. Nevertheless, Lyne, unlike most other directors, refused to follow the zeitgeist, preferring to remain faithful to his favorite, albeit archaic genre right up to the present day. It would seem that the sexual objectification of the female body is the last thing we need in the era of the #MeToo movement and the growing influence of feminism, but "Deeper Waters" was still given the green light, if only on a streaming level.
This corporate decision is quite understandable: first, Deeper Waters is not devoid of femme gaze - the film is based on the novel of the same name by the celebrated American writer Patricia Highsmith; second, since Lolita, Adrian Lyne has managed to establish himself as a director who can speak very subtly and, importantly, wisely on the most provocative topics. On paper, Deeper Waters looked like a chiseled remake of Lyne's Unfaithful or at least an erotic version of David Fincher's Vanished, but it ended up being neither. You have to hand it to me: the entire first act of the film pretty successfully keeps the intrigue going while not hiding the identity of the main killer (Vic). As it turns out, even in high society, the man with Ben Affleck's face is weakly drawn to the criminal - his words are taken as a joke, and only Melinda begins to look around anxiously in the dark.
However, the moment when, it would seem, the suspense should have entered its legal rights, on the screen there is only a monotonous change of gloomy plans of Affleck's pouty face and the views of a naked de Armas, which have become rather annoying. One gets the impression that Lyne himself doesn't really know what to do with the main characters, as a result they are expectedly bogged down in their own story, which becomes more and more reminiscent of an endless Groundhog Day where the two try, but can't get anywhere, to have sex. Jacob Elodie and Finn Whittrock as one-night stand lovers aren't much of a lifesaver, if only because they have a miserable ten minutes of running time - for some reason, Vic's apparently intimate relationship with the snails is given much more time (perhaps the oddest reference to "My Teacher is an Octopus").
By the end, "Deeper Waters" is openly self-parody, and is second only to the legendary "Room" by Tommy Wiseau in the degree of senselessly over-the-top drama. However, the film also falls short of the "so bad it's even good" description, primarily because of Lyne's justifiable ambition to excite the world once again, which unexpectedly turns against him and turns into a mockery.
This article was sponsored by Kellie Cyr
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